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March 06, 2025 | The American Prospect

Toni Aguilar Rosenthal

Op-Ed Climate and Environment

The Clean Air Act is Under Attack 

In 1943, Los Angeles residents awoke to a city so thoroughly pervaded by eye-stinging smog that they thought the city had been the victim of a World War II-related chemical attack. It hadn’t. Rather, a boom in car infrastructure coupled with new and existing industrial pollution caused sulfur dioxide, carbon dioxide, and other particulate matter to dominate the air in the city. At times it was nearly impossible to see more than a few blocks, or to breathe outside of one’s home. 

February 07, 2025 | The American Prospect

Hannah Story Brown

Op-Ed 2024 Election/TransitionClimate and EnvironmentDoug BurgumEthics in GovernmentInteriorTech

Trump’s Energy Czar Is All In on AI

When Donald Trump nominated North Dakota Gov. Doug Burgum to be his interior secretary, centrist to right-of-center “abundance agenda” advocates were jubilant. Politico reported, with typically amoral zeal, that Interior would be led by an “overnight rock star in the tech and energy worlds.” Burgum has a foot in both camps, as a former governor from fracking country with deep ties to fossil fuel executives like fracking magnate Harold Hamm, and a venture capitalist invested in software companies who sold his own software company to Microsoft for $1.1 billion in 2001.

January 29, 2025 | The American Prospect

Toni Aguilar Rosenthal

Op-Ed Climate and Environment

The Texas Model

Trump’s inner circle is stacked with corporate lackeys, far-right influencers, and as Public Citizen described it, “Self-Enriching Grifters.” Many of them, though (somewhat) new to the national political spotlight, are all too familiar to observers of one state: Texas. 

December 23, 2024 | The American Prospect

Toni Aguilar Rosenthal

Op-Ed Congressional OversightDepartment of Veterans Affairs

The VA's Self-Made Dialysis Disaster

Former Representative Doug Collins is Donald Trump’s pick to head the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA), a federal agency that oversees the administration of health care to over 9.1 million veterans. Collins, notably, is a veteran himself, but has seemingly little background on veterans issues. His early pronouncements are superficially bland, promising to “root out corruption, and ensure every veteran receives the benefits they’ve earned,” among other things.